tv House Speaker Holds Briefing CSPAN December 15, 2021 6:09pm-6:37pm EST
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download c-span's new mobile app and stay up-to-date with live video coverage of the day's big events from live streams of the house and senate floor and key congressional hearings to white house events and supreme court oral arguments. our live interactive morning program washington journal where we hear your voices every day. c-span now has you covered. download the app for free today. house speaker nancy pelosi says she remains hopeful that the president's social spending plan also known as the build back better act will be passed into law by the of the year. she briefed reporters this morning in the capitol.
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really sad moments of silence yesterday for the 800,000 people who have died of covid. our thoughts and prayers are with their families. and, those who lost their livelihoods as well. the desk -- deaths are so sad. it is so hard to calm by hand that comprehend 800 south -- comprehend 800,000 people. the number continues to grow. we continue to be optimistic about the effectiveness of the vaccine. the awareness that some people are coming to is that they need to be vaccinated. they need to be vaccinated. we also had the moment of
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silence for those effected by the storms. i was very moved by representative, who represented western bespoke a moment of silence as who spoke for a moment of silence for those who lost their lives. i talked to ambassador. he chatted with -- i talked to him after. he chatted with the president today. so far, they are pleased. they have received federal response necessary. i talked to mr. rogers. he knows what we can do. i am sure that there is more that congress needs to do. they will inform us of that. he told me that the storms were a mile wide and with such force, so very sad. yesterday was a busy day for us legislatively.
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as you know, we passed a resolution against racism in our society and establishing a special counsel at the department of state talking about the numbers of incidents against muslims in our country in terms of anti-muslim sentiment, we also passed the weaker -- uighur bill for china to end what they are doing there. that is genocide. there is genocide in china. the interest in our country is about the human rights aspect but also the forced labor piece of it. when president jean -- president xi jinping brings these people into the forced labor camps and is separating them from families and taking other drastic action he is also engaging in forced
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labor. that is something that we cannot have our businesses compete with. so, from a moral standpoint, a value standpoint, the legislation is very important and, from a trade standpoint, essential as well. the big event for yesterday was the debt limit. to lift the debt limit. it is always so interesting to me that the republicans vote against lifting the debt limit, the ceiling of the debt limit.
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millions of jobs lost. trillions of dollars of household wealth down the drain. and again, the cause -- the cost , you have a car loan, a credit card bill, a school loan, any interest you are paying on a loan will be increased. we did not lift the debt ceiling -- if we did not lift the debt ceiling -- the constitution says the faith in credit of the u.s. should not be questioned. discussions of it a few years ago and lowered the interest of our credit rating. that was not a good thing for our economy. we should not be flirting with danger when it comes to our economy whether it is our national economy, global economy, or the personal.
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i want to commend chairman george mcgovern. he gets confused with george mcgovern on the feud -- food security issues. that is jim mcgovern. a patron saint for us in terms of fighting for human rights. this uighur bill on forced labor was his legislation yesterday. i am glad you mentioned that when i talked about that. so now, we'll just try to see how soon we can pass the bill back better legislation. it is so important. it is fraught with meaning at this time because today, the 15th of december, will be the last bite and child tax credit that would go out. -- biden child tax credit that
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can go out. we hope we can have this settled before christmas because december 31 this expires. so, it is essential. what we see in terms of the child tax credit is that it has been used more recently for preparing children for school. it has been used for food, rent. it is essential. 60 million children benefit. a large number coming out of poverty. everything to do with children, child care, universal pre-k, making childcare affordable. i guess the best two words to use, build back better, it is transformative that all of that.
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it lowers cost. very frightening issues people have going to sleep, how will we pay the bill? build back better helps to do that. build back better with women, for children, for the planet, lowering energy costs. it lowers cost. hopefully, the senate will deal with that and send that to us. we are hopeful they will send us bills to protect our democracy that respects the sink team of the vote -- the sanctity of the vote, that keeps us a democracy. we are ready to come back.
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it is pretty exciting. the enthusiasm out there for the presidents package from his vision for our country, building infrastructure and a bipartisan bill to do that, many of us are having our town meetings, our public events in our own regions and the response has been so optimistic about how these resources to build infrastructure in a way that brings equity, fairness, justice to it all. in a green way that protects the environment, that creates good paying union jobs, jobs that again protect the planet as we promote jobs, as we move commerce, as we get people safely to and from school and
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work without staying in cars a long time so it improves quality of life. with the infrastructure bill, the bill back better enhances all of that. we are very eager and very proud of that work. i think there is an agreement that can be made. and, i put it forward working to pass that on the house side. so, that is what we have going. did i talk about steph curry? just coincidental. in the first few minutes i was not by myself. mr. payne and i were in the cloakroom with ella and the first few minutes, boom.
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tied. a few minutes later, rates the record. such dignity, such poise, such discipline, such excellence. then i had to go to work. then i came back to see the ending and see miller and jones, sit -- to see the other two leaders in that field be there. i do not have my phone but i have a picture on my phone of them giving steph the shirt with his number on it. i think we will get to 3000 pretty soon. but, no pressure. let's just win the game. but, it was pretty exciting. to see the is susie has him -- he sees the enthusiasm of the crowd for that achievement -- to see the enthusiasm of the crowd for that achievement. there was great enthusiasm for steph curry. we are very proud of him. any questions?
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>> bottom speaker -- madame baker -- speaker, do you have any reaction to that? should members of congress and their spouses be banned from trading individual stocks while serving in congress? speaker pelosi: i'm not familiar with that five-month review. but if people are not reporting, they should be. this is a free market. we are a free market economy. they should be able to participate in that. >> tells about voting rights. senator warnock yesterday expressed voting rights, through
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the holidays, to get it done and pressuring the white house and senator manchin. you share that sentiment? do you think there needs to be more urgency? speaker pelosi: senator warnock's statement yesterday was a beautiful patriotic statement about our country. he has been an inspiration all his life. now is a member of the senate. so, i am inspired by and agree with what he says. i don't participate that much in senate rules discussion. but, i do know that the three members of the supreme court, senator mitch mcconnell got there was a simple majority by taking a section to filibuster. so, people that have a job for life effecting the lives of the
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american people. i do not see why we could have that could not have legislation that stops voter suppression -- that stops voter suppression and makes it harder for people to vote and now to end of election nullification. with stiff competition within their initiatives across the country, for the worst. the election nullification has attracted a good deal of attention because if you are just going to say we will have elections with three people and they would've said with the numbers are, then you have destroyed our democracy. so, i would hope we could make progress. in a bipartisan way. i do not know why the sink to meet -- the sanctity of the vote, the fundamental principle of our democracy is not as important to republicans as it is to democrats. i support what senator warnock was suggesting.
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>> with the build back better bill passed months ago, did you miscalculate the resistance from joe manchin? speaker pelosi: no. this is called the legislative process. we have our roles. they have their roles. i am still hopeful it will pass. i am not going to have a postmortem on something that has not died. i think we will have legislation that will pass. i hope the sooner the better, especially, since we have deadlines. i respect to the process and i respect senator manchin. >> what do you think about crime
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in san francisco, smash and grabs, and is there a federal response looking at these problems? speaker pelosi: this is happening not only in san francisco, but, other parts of the country. the retail association of the whole country and leaders in business across the country have asked for a remedy. we do have one. we are preparing the chips bill, for lack of another, you know what to -- what i mean when i say the chips bill. the chips bill is about supply and research. we are very close to our own agreement in the house on that. within that bill, the energy and commerce committee has something called inform, all caps, legislation that would require those selling online especially to establish their legitimacy as
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to where these products came from because what people do is they steal things and sell them online. they have to establish their legitimacy if they are going to be so online. then, in addition, the judiciary committee has a bill which addresses the same problem in a different way in terms of holding platforms accountable for those selling things accountable for those goods. it is out of the question that people should be able to think they can just steal things for that steal things, profit from them, and not have any -- steal things, profit from them and not have any accountability. so, some combination of those two things. both will be in the bill. how will they come together? we are working with the senate
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to pass that legislation. >> you have anything to say about specifically what the mayor of san francisco said? speaker pelosi: it is absolutely outrageous and cannot continue. the fact is there is an attitude of lawlessness in our country that springs from i don't know where. maybe you did. -- maybe you do. we cannot have that lawlessness become the norm. -- we cannot have that lawlessness become the norm. some of it is high-level stores. some of it is local walgreens.
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but, none of it is acceptable. and again, it is -- it has to be stopped. again, showing that people are not able to profit from that. this is somebody going home -- student because they don't have the money to buy. this is about stealing for profit. they have to prove where it came from. it is outrageous and i agree with the mayor. it must be stopped. it is not to san francisco. it is our entire country. that is evidenced by the appeals we are receiving from across the country for the legislation. so, i hope that will be soon for many reasons including the providence -- >> looking ahead to january 6, because we may not get an opportunity to talk to you again before then. >> i will be here tomorrow and next week. are you not going to be around?
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is this your goodbye? >> even if it is not, the inspector general for the capitol police last week said a lot of the recommendations are still open to better that department. coming upon a year since january 6, how do you feel about the level of change at that agency, the security here at the capitol and the security of your members as they help to spend their holidays at home? speaker pelosi: thank you for the question. it is my hope that this is not our last meeting. we still have to deal with the sanctity of the vote and protecting our democracy. we have to lower cost of the american people bypassing bbb. hopefully, we will see you next week. in terms of that, i feel the capital -- the capitol is much safer than one year ago. we will have a report as we prepare for january 6 in terms of the different categories of
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strength and morality police force, the physical structure coming from the architect of the capitol. and, the fulfillment of what is happening here is not so much about security as it is about covid. so, we want to be able to open the capitol. of course, we cannot do that without the consent of the capitol physician. he knows of our interests and how he thinks we could do that soon. so, the fact that we do not have as many toros -- tours is not necessarily a security issue. it is a covid issue. we are always working to do better with security. we do have those conversations on going. we will have some accounting of it before the january 6 date. >> if democrats do not get build back better soon, would you
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consider a stand-alone piece of legislation just for the child tax credit? we have a deadline. the irs will not be able to send out january's payment on time. >> is going out today for this month. >> january's payment. speaker pelosi. you said this month. speaker pelosi: of course, we can pass that in the house. whether we can pass it in the senate remains to be seen. i don't want to let anybody also hook on bbb to say we cover that one thing, so, now the pressure is off. i think that is really important leverage in the discussion of bbb that the children and their families will suffer without that payment. not everybody gets it on a monthly basis but those who need the most do. so, we are still optimistic about bbb passing.
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perhaps, even if it were after the first of the year, which i hope it is not, it could be retroactive if it is early enough in the first of the year. thank you all very much. as i said my colleagues last i, i hope i see you next week. but if i do not, mary everything. -- merry everything. the christmas, -- merry christmas, happy holidays, happy new year, happy everything. when i announced to my colleagues, some were very excited and others were like, the next -- the next one? i do not. no. -- lighten up.
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